J3/03-265r1
Date: 13 Nov 2003
To: J3
From: Richard Maine
Subject: Proposed minor fixes to the FCD
The edits from this paper were all accepted by J3 and
incorporated into J3/03-270.
I propose the following fixes to the FCD as part of the US position.
1. Typos (pointed out to me by other people)
[380:26] Delete spurious quote at the end of the line.
2. Note 12.21 has its explanations reversed. There isn't much point
in having a note to explain the reason for a requirement if the
explanation is wrong; that causes more confusion than it fixes.
The conclusion is correct, but the explanation is backwards. The
explanation was the sole reason for the note.
[268:24+3]-[269:0+1] "and have...that type." ->
"and the declared type of the dummy argument needs to be
the same as, or an extension of, the declared type of
the actual argument."
[269:0+2] "the dummy argument" -> "the actual argument"
[269:0+3] "the actual argument" -> "the dummy argument"
3. Fix some inconsistently done hyphens/dashes/minuses.
As noted by David Muxworthy, the draft isn't entirely consistent
on the usage of hyphens, en-dashes, and minus signs. For the
most part, the distinctions are almost invisible on paper except
to the most practiced eye. The distinction does affect things
like electronic searches with some tools. I propose the following
edits for this matter.
Change en-dash (LaTeX --) to minus (LaTeX $-$).
[71:6+7], [213:21], [293:13,16], [502:9,10]
I do not propose changing the other cases pointed out by David
and others. Most of the other cases are at least arguably
expressions written in Fortran rather than in math. LaTex
math mode is not appropriate there. Admitedly, the en-dash
isn't quite right either, but it is arguably a better choice
than a hyphen. Probably the most defensible position is that
all Fortran expressions, even inline in text, should be in
verbatim mode (which uses a different font and spacing). But
that would be a huge editorial change, which would take lots
of effort and would certainly need several iterations to get
right. Given that the "right" change isn't going to happen,
I don't see much point in changing from one questionable
form to another that is just as questionable in my mind.